Joe Hisaishi

Most celebrated for the emotional range of his orchestral film scores, which shift between tenderness and intensity, Joe Hisaishi ranks among Japan’s most prolific composers of concert works, cinema music, and experimental electronic pieces for animation. He gained widespread recognition through repeated partnerships with Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki on landmark titles that include My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle.

Born Mamoru Fujisawa in Nakano, Japan, Hisaishi began violin lessons at age five and later majored in music composition at Kunitachi College of Music. His debut album, the 1981 percussion-ensemble recording Mkwaju, incorporated keyboards and computer programming. The following year he issued Information under the name Wonder City Orchestra, a pseudonym he has frequently employed. In 1983 he completed his first film score, marking the start of his long association with Miyazaki; that score accompanied the 1984 release Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, whose blend of lyrical strings and percussive fanfare foreshadowed the dramatic breadth of his later work.

Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Hisaishi maintained a steady output of non-cinematic electronic and classical pieces while simultaneously supplying scores, image albums, and vocal albums for anime projects. Standout entries in his Miyazaki catalog encompass the soundtracks for My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), the 2001 Academy Award winner for Best Animated Feature Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), and the 2013 films The Wind Rises and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

He also composed for several live-action features directed by Takeshi Kitano, among them the 2010 yakuza drama Outrage, which received a Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or nomination. Numerous compilations of his classical and film music appeared across his career. After Miyazaki withdrew from feature filmmaking in 2013, Hisaishi remained active, writing for additional films and video games and leading orchestral concerts throughout Asia and Europe during the rest of the decade.

Decca Gold released the 2020 retrospective Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi, which was soon followed by the second volume, Songs of Hope, in 2021. That same year Hisaishi scored the Chinese film Soul Snatcher. Further Ghibli-related reissues appeared in 2022, and in 2023 he entered an agreement with Deutsche Grammophon for a new collection drawn from the Miyazaki catalog. Titled A Symphonic Celebration and recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the album presented freshly arranged symphonic versions of music from Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Totoro. His second Deutsche Grammophon release, issued in 2024, focused on concert works and included Symphony No. 2.